WARCO WM-250 lathe family and WM16 mill - 001

I have a question with respect to power feeds on the wm-16. Warco haven't had any in stock for a long, long time. I see that Toolco (in the UK) offer something that looks very similar, has anyone attemped to fit one to a Wm-16? Alternatively I am minded to try adapting the type of power feed that fits on the Warco Major mill/drill (or Aximnster ZX series). Has anyone any experience in doing this and is it straightforward?

Clive

Looking at the Warco catalogue their power feed..item 3205.16, looks almost identical to Toolcos PF1 apart from the on/off switch on the Toolco item, so I don't see any reason why it shouldn't fit. The other difference is I was quoted £280 for the Warco item at the Harrogate exhib' as opposed to Toolco's, advertised at £240 on their website.. but toolco's won't be in stock until Aug'.

George

Can't directly answer you question, Clive, but over here (Canada) I bought the Grizzly power-feed for their WM16- lookalike on the basis that it looked, in the catalog, like another WM-16-lookalike I had from BusyBee locally and it fitted just fine. It looks like the Toolco one.

There's not much to the interface actually. It's mounted to two empty threaded holes on the left end of the table - which you should have and the drive couples to leadscrew by removing the handle and dial on that side.

As I mentioned before in this and another thread, if you happen to stall the cutter under power feed it can be a bit problematic since the machine will stop but the feed will continue.

Edited By Sid Herbage on 15/06/2013 17:34:05

My new imperial WARCO WM250 V-F arrived 3.00PM to keep my metric WM16 mill company. Had men coming to do the lift at 5.00pm so sweated buckets cracking the case open, removing all the bits. Had to remove the chuck guard to temporarily fit the sheet metal splash guard as that part of the machine is up agin' the shed wall and I needed it fitted to measure up.

Measured up all the hole centres and drilled the bench. With five minutes to spare I finally got the chuck off. That was one fiddly job and designing a tool (ratchet?) to make it easier will be a priority.

At 5.05 was informed that the heavy mob could not now do the job till the morrow. Cream crackered I most definitely was!

It's time like this I find myself reaching for a cold bottle of stumbling juice (or two) and s*d what the vicar thinks!

Rik

I was doing a cut on the WM16 today and all of a sudden the spindle stopped but the motor kept going with a slight grinding sound. I switched off immediately as I've read about some of the folks on the forum who have stripped the plastic gears on their machines and though the worst. I was lucky though, all that had happened was the gear change knob had rotated out of position and was kind of in the neutral position but still rubbing the edge of the teeth. Once in gear all was ok.

I also wanted to mention that I've added some self adhesvie sound proofing sponge(foam) to the inside of the motor cover as I sometimes get a bad screaching sound when some of the resonant frequencies caused by milling are passed into the cover. The sponge is made by AKASA and is usually meant for sound proofing computer cases. It does the job very well.

Ed.

Hi Ed,

first time I have heard that the gear change knob has jumped out of position. On my slightly large milling machine there is a spring loaded ball that holds the knob in Hi or Lo position. Never experienced any movement of that knob on my machine. Your sound proofing sounds interesting.

Thor

I have a RDG version of this mill

after I had only had for about a month the gear stripped upon investigation the gear change mech had its detent drilled in the wrong position so the gears were only partially in mesh( about a 1/4 in mesh)

Made a new detent plate and problem solved..

I fitted a seig power drive to my mill on the x axis and a parvelux geared motor to the z axis its transformed the machine heres a couple of pics of the power feed

The coupling fits where the handwheel was so it has a bore of 12mm for the plain keyed area then a 8mm thread to pull it on then a grub screw to hold it tight ( that indexed so it goes down the keyway)

the other end has a 10mm hole with another coupling to fit to the tongue coming out of the motor unit this means that just undoing the grubscrew there the motor unit could be taken out of action.

However since doing it I've not need to move manually...its possible to overrun the motor and gearbox.

The on off switch on the power unit was on the variable speed pot so I brought the wires out to a large switch on top so now the speed stays set constant and just use the top mounted switch and the reverse/forward switch. I didnt bother mounting the limit switch as I dont tend to leave the machine whilst running.

Whilst using the quick advance button the whole machine vibrated massively it took me quite a while to realise to remove the hand grip knob out of the other ends hand wheel ( DOH !!! )

I did wonder about guarding the coupling area to stop rags /sleeves getting caught but decided not to

Edited By Ian Parkin on 18/06/2013 09:24:37

Ifound the Arc Euro flanged nuts a help on the wm250 lathe chuck. Dispense with the washers (so long as the washer police aren't looking) and it makes it much easier. I did find this a pain but with experience it gets much better.

Why is it that I always need the 'other' chuck no matter how carefully I plan?

Steve W

My WM250 chuck guard would not stay up. Possibly stop/shear pin damaged by a small boy.. I bent up some 4mm perspex to fit. It will also stop anything rolling from the headstock into the chuck. Seemed a better idea than dismantling and probing deeper! Steve W

Rik'

Congrats' on getting your lathe, a couple of pics of your set up would be nice.

George

Thanks George - Just locked up the "tardis" and opened the bar - cheers.

It took three of us to heft it up onto the bench and another fifteen minutes getting the mounting bolts lined up. If I had to do the job again I would make things much easier by gluing the chip pan to the bench before offering the lathe up. Have spent the last three hours trying to get a distorted - alright, bent - splash back fitted. It involved a mallet, a junior hacksaw and a lot of bad language. The last thing I did before locking up was to undo the face plate packing - I never expected it to be so big! I can think of a lot of possibilities using that beauty.

Got the WARCO manual along with a printed out version of the Grizzly G0752 (looks similar) on my desk and will read through both shortly. The Grizzly version has already come in handy as it reminded me to apply sealant between the lathe feet and the chip/drip tray.

Had a word with Michael in the service department and he confirms that their suds pump works OK with cutting oil so that's the route I am going down - pity WARCO are out of stock as theirs is just £120 with free delivery, will have to look elsewhere.

Ordered a QCTP with an assortment of extra tool holders and that will be my first turning job as the bore in the block is to small to fit on the boss on the lathe. WARCO charge £50 for opening it up, I declined their service and will do it myself . That'll be fifty quid saved and the four way tool post the lathe came fitted with can go on a popular auction site and get another bit of "cashback".

Will post pics and a movie within next few days but for now I'm having a busy (but very pleasurable) time getting "stuff" ship shape and Bristol.

Tomorrow it's cleaning down, lubricating and running in as prescribed by GRIZZLY and I daresay there will be a degree of drooling going on as well

Rik

Rik

I have a suds tank, pump and pipery sold by Axminster, which they still do for £95.00. I bought a NVR switch from them at the same time which makes it safer and easier to use.

Jim

> four way tool post the lathe came fitted with can go on a popular auction site and get another bit of "cashback".

You never know when it may come in handy - less overhang, when you need to hget a sideways mounted tool round a really large diameter, or something (like a knurling or spherical turning tool) that's just too cumbersome to mount in a QCTP holder.

Neil

As Neil says keep the existing 4-way as they do come in handy for holding larger tools than than my Dickson.

Depending on what toolpost you have bought it may be hardened so not such an easy job to bore out, I did the opposite on my 280 and machined down the boss on the cross slide which is just CI.

Rik / all

Fortunately I had bought an engine hoist to move my previous machine(Clarke C500 combi,before selling it) when converting my garage so managed to do most of it myself with the help of SWMBO.

Another point to look out for on your machine, the change wheels are noisy, make sure that the backlash is set up as there seems to be plenty of slop on my gears radially & axialy so I suspect there will be some large clearances between the gear bores ID & the banjo pins/ shafts OD..anyone had similar probs / resolution?

The way I've set up my backlash is to insert some folded paper (5 - 6 thou) in between the 40t spindle gear & Z2 gear as that seemed to be the worst,adjusted the banjo to nip the paper & tightened up, there was some improvement at that but had to leave off to attend to something else so will have to get back & check the other gear meshes later.

George

Edited By mechman48 on 19/06/2013 16:41:37

Edited By mechman48 on 19/06/2013 16:43:01

Mine were noisy as supplied but I did the paper trick (only one layer) through the whole banjo and they are very quiet now, just do the same whenever I need to setup for screwcutting or revert back to the fine feed.

Also watch the thin washers that space the gears off the banjo, get them wrong and two gears will rub sides and ring.

Edited By JasonB on 19/06/2013 17:43:16

Thanks to Neil and Jason for that timely reminder. I was forgetting about the uses that a four way has over the Dixon type QCTP so I'll keep it.

The bloke in the workshop at WARCO tells me that the QCTP is case hardened only, he mounts it in a four jaw and uses one of those cheap blue brazed tip boring bars to open it out. "Once you get under the skin it's like cheese" he said. I think I might try doing it on the mill with a boring head and tipped tool just to be different.

Cleaned it down today and went to give it a test run - dead, lifeless, no power grrrrrrrr! Checked fuses, fuses OK. Call to WARCO. The bloke asked me if the change wheel cover was fitted correctly - no, it was on the floor. "The closed cover operates a micro switch" he tells me . Well I didn't know did I??

Started it up but what a clatter! Removed cover again and disconnected the quadrant. Started up again, this time it was much quieter. I'm going to have to do something about those noisy change wheels. I have used the paper strips but it makes no difference. For now though, I have just cleaned all that nasty sandy, gritty grease from the gears and re-greased - still noisy though. Many years ago I worked at a place that had very large, old and noisy belt driven machinery with 3ft dia. spur wheels. After a while the gears got so noisy the maintenance fitters used to apply this stuff to the teeth, it came in sticks the size of a tube of silicon sealant. It worked like magic - I wonder what it was?

I was just looking in the Axminster catalogue and spotted this paste called Ambersil Tufcut metal cutting compound. I was wondering if I might get away without using a coolant system if I used this stuff. Anyone tried it?

Rik

Another mod I did on my 250V-F... the supplied chuck guard has only one small window which restricts viewing of the chuck to some extent.. for me... (As I'm a short a***e) or should I say my a***e is too close to the ground? , any way I cut out the top section & fitted a double, gapped, 2mm acetate panel in place, now I can see more of what's going on at chuck jaws, no doubt some will have removed the guard altogether.. personal choice! I considered this too but decided against it as it still catches cutting fluid instead of flinging it back at me, or on the floor, & I have a clear vinyl sheet at the back to stop any trailing up the wall, (you can just make it out in the background).

George.

Edited By mechman48 on 25/06/2013 12:56:51

Did a backlash check over on the rest of the changewheels as mentioned earlier & set the gap to a single paper sheet..3-4 thou' more improvement on the noise level, although still rattles somewhat,I am putting this down to the radial & axial 'slop' (not so much running clearances) on the ID of the gear bores & banjo shafts, as manufactured in china ,again, QC at point of manufacture.

Checked oil levels in gearbox & saddle; both were lower than what is recommended so refering back to 'Grizzly' equivalent machine manual..BF20L who suggest ISO 60 grade oil, checked on Google for SAE equiv' .. SAE 20, so bought a litre of Engine oil SAE 15 - 40 & topped both up. Will use for a couple of weeks then drain off & replace all with new SAE 15 - 40 as no idea what the manufacturers put in originally!

George.

Probably "oil".